


Kali Puja

by xenoamorist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Chromatic Character, Courtship, F/M, Fade to Black, Goddesses, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:52:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoamorist/pseuds/xenoamorist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't until the third time he sees her that Gabriel manages to woo Kali.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kali Puja

**Author's Note:**

> **Challenge:** [comment_fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile)/[gabriel4sam](http://gabriel4sam.livejournal.com/profile), Carnival is the _perfect_ date for Gabriel and Kali
> 
> Mirrored on Livejournal: <http://momentane.livejournal.com/946.html>

He can create, and she can destroy: whatever he does, she can undo; whatever he makes, she can break.

Somehow, he finds that to be an incredible turn-on.

❧

  
When he first sees her, she is rampaging on Earth, her skin black as night, her teeth white, her tongue red. She wears a garland of human hands around her waist; a string of skulls adorns her neck.

He disguises himself as a bird and watches her from afar, his wings folded close to his body. She is terrifying, so unlike his brothers and sisters in Heaven who are content with their flashes of holy light and their touchless smiting, so unlike his angels filled with such controlled anger: she is all blood and contact and rage, so very honest in every action she takes. She is everything that he is not.

 _Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners._

He takes flight. A wind picks up behind him as his wings flash and grow, and all he leaves behind are leaves fluttering in the air, the fire in her wake twisting and curling them into specks of ash drifting against the night sky.

❧

  
A couple hundred years pass by the time he sees her again. The ice and snow make his vessel’s bones ache, and he is tired of cloudberry and pastries—so he decides to go south, where he remembers passing through a warmer and more humid climate.

It will be another couple of centuries before he can walk these roads in his vessel’s true body, so, for now, he masks himself with brown skin and black hair and blends in. He speaks all tongues, and it does not take long to pick up their human ways; he spends a few years chumming it up with the local demigods, playing a few tricks here and there, and smiting the occasional pompous asshole. When he decides to take a break, he finds a food stall and washes down a bowl of gulab jamun with a tall cup of mango lassi.

When she appears again, she is clothed and seated, a steaming cup of tea on the table before her. His years in Valhalla combined with his time spent playing human have undone an eternity with his Father: his eyes are filled with lust as he takes in her form. She has cloaked herself in the brown skin of her people. Two of her arms lie at her side; he sees them, but he knows that the humans around them do not. He wonders if she is the same—he has long since fallen into the habit of hiding his wings. He flexes his shoulderblades, absent of their weight, and saunters toward her.

“Hello,” he says, a crooked smile on his lips. She turns to face him. Even when she is in a human form, he feels that same ferocity radiating from her, that same intensity piercing through him as she looks at him. He does not feel quite as in fearful awe as he does when he gazes upon his Father’s face, but his hands still tremble and his legs still feel weak.

“Hello.”

“You,” he says, willing his voice to remain steady as he takes a step closer to her, “are a lovely woman, you know that?”

She cocks an eyebrow and turns away from him; he feels his shoulders relaxing. He takes a deep and silent breath as she reaches for her cup of tea, her fingers slender and expressive; she raises the cup to her lips and takes a sip. “And who are you?”

“Loki,” he says, his borrowed name rolling smoothly off of his tongue.

“Loki,” she murmurs. “Not one of ours, then?”

“You got me,” he says, his eyes twinkling, then motions at the seat opposite her. “Mind if I join you?”

She looks up at him with an icy glare. “Yes.”

“Yes?” He raises both eyebrows. She lets out a small sigh and puts down her cup; a couple of drops splash out onto the table.

“Yes, I do mind,” she says, her voice low and dangerous.

“Hey, just thought I’d ask,” he says. She glares at him in response; he feels as if he is shrinking, as if he has suddenly become insignificant—as if she is stepping on him, crushing him into the ground, and suddenly he is dirt and nothing—

He turns and walks away. When he is sure that she cannot see him anymore, he unfurls his wings to their fullest span. They brush against the buildings on either side of the road as he disappears in a burst of wind.

❧

  
The next time they meet, he finds English breakfast tea listed on the menu beside his beloved mango lassi, and scones listed alongside gulab jamun. He wears a suit with a loosened tie, and she wears a red sari—a sheet of fabric embroidered with gold hangs over her shoulder; he catches glimpses of her bare midriff as she moves. Her body is firm, youthful, and her black hair flows out behind her.

His skin is white this time—pink, really, after hours in the sun—but she recognizes him still when he walks up to her.

It is Diwali. Tiny candles in small clay pots line every window, sit before every statue in the temple; she watches as her followers prostrate themselves in the temple. The air smells of jasmine, delicate and light; garlands of the tiny white buds woven together with orchid hang from the statues' hands, lie draped on the altars before them.

She gazes upon a statue of herself, many-armed, her tongue red and long, her foot atop the body of a man; he follows her gaze and smirks.

“So I take it you enjoy being on top,” he says, stepping forward so that he’s beside her. She turns and looks at him, her lips set in a straight line.

“Are you always this obnoxious?” she says, her voice bored and dripping with venom.

He smiles. He has spent the past hundreds of years with hundreds and thousands of women, each time steeling himself for the next time he’ll see her—each time bracing himself for her.

“Are you always this beautiful?”

He snaps his fingers. They are in a vast hall, the room long and lined with furs; the table before them is sturdy, draped with an ornate cloth. A whole roast sheep lies in the middle of the table; plates of turnips, carrots, and parsnips surround the sheep, and another plate is piled high with apples and berries. He pours her a goblet of mead and pours another for himself.

“Join me.” He raises the goblet and takes a sip, his eyes sparkling over the rim; her expression remains the same. He blinks, and suddenly the entire hall is filled with smoke—fire crackles and roars, consuming the walls; the roof falls in with a crash, revealing the night sky.

He turns his head ever so slightly, a smile still on his lips. As they stare each other down, the scene around them changes again: they are in a clearing before a bonfire; the air is sour with the scent of wine, and the long, flickering shadows highlight the bare bodies of the people thronged around them, skin against skin, lips on lips, their bodies contorting as their sighs and moans fill the air. His smile broadens as he tilts his head and raises his eyebrows at her, spreads his arms and offers the scene to her.

The world melts away again. She stands atop a pile of corpses, her four arms now ten; a silent intensity radiates from her, so solid it almost pushes him back, but he stands strong. Her arms blur together as bodies fall around her with each of her steps. Her face remains solemn, unchanging; with her face inches from his, she points a blade at his throat and draws a line of blood.

He waves away the bodies and the screams. They are in a smaller room now, bed made with crimson sheets, air heavy with the scent of incense; tiny candles line every surface, and red hibiscus petals dot the floor. He steps to the side and draws back the curtains: they are so high up that it feels as if they are floating. She looks down to see the city sparkling with the flames lit by those praising her name—looks up to see a million stars twinkling in the black mirror of the sky, so vast and unending, the streak of the Milky Way barely visible. The moon is dark.

She smiles.

“Well?”

Her response is to step forward, lean in until his heart thumps uncomfortably against his ribs. Her eyes capture every point of light; her face softens.

“Impressive.”

A moment of silence passes between them, and then he closes the distance between them, his lips meeting hers; he places one hand on the small of her back, traces the other down one of her arms; she pulls him close with two arms, tugs away the fabric of her sari with another. They make their way over to the bed and tumble onto it; he feels a hand—two hands—three—undoing his shirt, tugging off his tie, pulling his clothes away.

They do not emerge until the last candle of Diwali winks out.


End file.
